About Magic Numbers

I always find it funny that "magic numbers" start appearing in the standings late in the season at random times. It's almost appears that they don't exist prior to August.

In actuality, the Magic Number can be tracked from the beginning of the season. The Magic Number is simply the numbers of game for a season plus 1 minus your team's wins minus the opponent's losses with the fewest losses. There's nothing really magical about it. It's more of a clinching number. The number for every team at the beginning of the season is 163.

Before the Wild Card there was really only one clinching number in Baseball to worry about. That would be the number to clinch the Division title. The Wild Card creates a second number which is used to calculate the Wild Card (or playoff clinching).

I take the magic number to calculate something I don't have a name for, but for the time being in honor of this Blog, I'll call it the Gruntle-lator Ratio. Simply put this number calculates the ratio of the Magic Number vs. the Possible ways to reduce it creating a percentage. When the percentage hits 0% you've clinched the spot, when you exceed 100% you are eliminated. At the beginning of the season, everyone's ratio is 50.31%

Here's how it currently looks for the National League West:

Team Magic Number / Remaining / Ratio

Dodgers 40/87/45.98%
Rockies 49/87/56.32%
Giants 50/87/57.47%%
D-Backs 63/91/69.23%
Padres 65/90/72.22%

My basic premise is that as the Ratio gets below 40% there is a high likelihood that that team will clinch the title. Similarly teams that exceed 60% are all but eliminated. So although the D-Backs and Padres are not officially eliminated, you could say they are definitely out of the race.

But not always:

On September 15, 2007 the Padres were the Wild Card Leader in the NL but only had a Ratio of 48.28% needing 14 of the remaining 29 possibilities against the Phillies who were at the time trailing the Mets.

The Rockies meanwhile needed 20 of the Remaining 29 possible pickups or 68.97%. More incredibly as the final two weeks of the season unfolded, the real Wild Card Leader at the time was the New York Mets, who had already gone below 40% to win the East sitting at 37.93% on that date, but sitting at 32.35% three games earlier before being swept by the Phillies.

As it turned out the Padres only picked up 13 by the 162nd game and the Rockies 19 neither one reaching the magic number, which required them to play the Classic Tiebreaker 163rd game.

So it's not impossible to come back even with two weeks left unless of course your ratio goes over 100%.

NOTES: On August 30, 2008, the Dodgers were 4.5 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks and came back to win the Division. On August 18, 2009, the Rockies are 4.5 games behind the Dodgers. The Dodgers are 9-15 since a five game winning streak just after the All-Star Break. The Rockies are only 13-10 during that span, but have cut the lead from 9 to 4.5 games.